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Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

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Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#131

Post by mulmen »

eridius wrote: post #46
vijayr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only going to get worse with software eating the world and automation of every possible task that we can. It has already started with companies like Amazon (in their warehouses) using robots extensively.

Up until we finally get our collective heads out of our asses and implement something like Basic Income.

I'm a supporter of basic income as an experiment but it is interesting to think about alternatives. Is basic income simply a stepping stone to some kind of Star Trek post-scarcity utopia where there is no concept of money or wealth at all?

We survived the industrial revolution, is it not just human nature to adapt?

One example I recently discussed with friends was the idea that most truck drivers may soon be out of jobs due to automation. Since this is a highly specialized skill it would be hard for those workers to find alternative work without learning an entirely new skill set. But would it be feasible for those drivers to simply buy self driving trucks much like they already buy their conventional trucks and simply enjoy their lives while the truck drives itself? So even if self-driving trucks show up tomorrow is it necessary to pay truck drivers just to live? Can we offer an incentive like retraining to those drivers?

Is basic income actually the solution or do we need to take a harder look at things like the income gap and a tax structure that strongly favors investment in creating actual value (goods and services) instead of wealth for the sake of wealth (investments).

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#132

Post by [deleted] »

branchless wrote: post #72
was_boring wrote: post #36

What makes me upset is that the economic realities do not match what is taught in large swaths of America. We are taught (at least in my community, and I am 30 now still living within 20 miles of where I grew up) that a very achievable ideal is a middle class existence with one parent working, and a small house in the suburbs. I am in the top 1% income earners for my generation and do not even come close to this. I t…

Life is not hard for the rentiers extracting labour for your right to exist in said apartment. Where is all your labour going? Food? No. Transport? No. Energy? No. Rent? Bingo. Why is this happening? Because we came off the gold standard and there is no limit to the expansion of fiat money, therefore it expands via mortgage lending to mop up all productivity gains. Get the women out to work! Land prices up. Efficienc…

[deleted]

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#133

Post by Qwertystop »

virmundi wrote: post #106
eridius wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word is "serf", but your claim makes no sense anyway. A serf is not someone who receives money from their government. In fact, the whole point of Basic Income is you get the money even if you don't do any work at all, which is basically the complete opposite of a serf.

You're actually paying them to not riot. Serfs provided the core of a relatively stable body politic. They could be called on for war. They didn't have much economic power individually. They could be pushed around by the powers that be. They were also largely disarmed (Hillary and Obama). BI == Serfs until the government can implement either forced sterilization or State assisted suicide. For those down voting, pictu…

In practice, I think many of those people would probably just die of starvation or exposure, unless some charitable NGO picked up the tab. I don't have enough statistics to say whether it'd be most such people.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#134

Post by branchless »

photogrammetry wrote: post #129
branchless wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is not hard for the rentiers extracting labour for your right to exist in said apartment. Where is all your labour going? Food? No. Transport? No. Energy? No. Rent? Bingo. Why is this happening? Because we came off the gold standard and there is no limit to the expansion of fiat money, therefore it expands via mortgage lending to mop up all productivity gains. Get the women out to work! Land prices up. Efficienc…

You know, you could actually study why the gold standard is a terrible idea, rather than just fantasizing about it. The financial trickery you're talking about is caused by deregulation and would happen on the gold standard just as often, but with probably far more disastrous consequences.

I don't like the gold standard, I agree there. I do however think it provided some break on the unfettered issuance of fiat credit.

In any case it seems you agree that unfettered credit issuance is a huge problem, and perhaps the root cause of the upward pressure on asset prices that inevitably moves in step with productivity gains / more work?

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#135

Post by hood_syntax »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #118
vijayr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't going to happen easily. My experience: I've talked about this to many people (highly educated, smart people) - most of them are adamant on the idea that human beings absolutely have to work to deserve anything, even food and water. This might very well be anecdotal, but very few people get ideas like Basic Income intuitively. It would likely take tremendous amount to first make people understand, then acce…

All humans have a psychological need to be needed. The current way to best feel this is to provide income for yourself and your family through work, and provide a service for your employer. This is extremely satisfying for a majority of people. Take away work and these two things collapse. To get UBI to work, we need a new way for people to feel needed.

I disagree entirely that work is the best way to feel needed, and that feeling needed is necessary. I work because I have to, not because I care about working. If I didn't have to work, I wouldn't. I would spend time on personal projects and enjoying my life with my friends. Relationships are far better than work for "feeling needed".

To be honest though, I don't care about being needed. I don't need to exist. I like existing, and I don't want that to change any time soon, but not being needed doesn't affect my enjoyment. I like when my existence is appreciated by someone else, but my happiness and mental wellbeing is not predicated on that.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#136

Post by mulmen »

RUG3Y wrote: post #92
djb_hackernews wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 year olds are buying larger houses because typically those are the only options. It comes down to NIMBY local regulation enacted by the boomers with their FU I got mine attitude. Municipalities enforce size restrictions, ie you can't build too small, in order to ensure there isn't housing poor folk can afford. They enact parcel size restrictions which means a piece of land that could have 20 homes on it can only f…

My uncle lives in an area where a new house must be on a minimum sized lot of 1 acre. A nearby area requires 5 acres for a new house! I'd never heard of those kinds of restrictions before.

I live in Seattle and while I am aware that not everyone lives in a similar environment the concept of a minimum 5 acre lot staggers me. I consider myself lucky to have 600 square feet.

What kind of area has these rules and who sets them? To me a lot with 5 acres is officially "the country" where I would expect very little to zero regulation of what you can build.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#137

Post by ainiriand »

vijayr wrote: post #90
eridius wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up until we finally get our collective heads out of our asses and implement something like Basic Income.

That isn't going to happen easily. My experience: I've talked about this to many people (highly educated, smart people) - most of them are adamant on the idea that human beings absolutely have to work to deserve anything, even food and water. This might very well be anecdotal, but very few people get ideas like Basic Income intuitively. It would likely take tremendous amount to first make people understand, then acce…

Basic income should be the solution we, as an organized group, give to all individuals to be able to express themselves. All human beings have basic needs and the State have to provide this. The State here is the expression of the will of the population. Do not take the State as something socialist or communist, taking from someone and giving it to someone for free; no,this is provided by us, the population, for us, the population. We care of each other and we want that our kids have good education, we want to have accessible health care for everyone. And definitely, we want that, if in a few years, a lot of jobs are automated or done by someone in the third country, no one is left behind.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#138

Post by int_19h »

ainiriand wrote: post #130
vijayr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only going to get worse with software eating the world and automation of every possible task that we can. It has already started with companies like Amazon (in their warehouses) using robots extensively.

In my opinion, massive automation of tasks is going to cause a massive demand of programmers, developers and QA engineers, so no robot apocalypse yet. Basic income is not the solution to this problem because this is not a problem. The solution to this 'problem' is having a better education and making tech more accessible for everyone.

> In my opinion, massive automation of tasks is going to cause a massive demand of programmers, developers and QA engineers, so no robot apocalypse yet.

The question is not how massive it is in absolute numbers, but how does it compare to the amount of jobs that are replaced by automation?

And you know the answer to that question. If all jobs so replaced would create an equivalent number of "programmers, developers and QA engineers", nobody would automate, because it would cost more than human laborers.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#139

Post by mulmen »

harryh wrote: post #56
djb_hackernews wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 year olds are buying larger houses because typically those are the only options. It comes down to NIMBY local regulation enacted by the boomers with their FU I got mine attitude. Municipalities enforce size restrictions, ie you can't build too small, in order to ensure there isn't housing poor folk can afford. They enact parcel size restrictions which means a piece of land that could have 20 homes on it can only f…

Houses getting bigger due to regulatory changes (as opposed to buyer preference) is a perspective I had not considered. Interesting! Thanks!

Say's law was the most counterintuitive concept I was exposed to in undergrad econ classes. After consideration it does make sense but runs counter to an entrepreneurial view of the world where products are created to serve a need.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#140

Post by int_19h »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #118
vijayr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't going to happen easily. My experience: I've talked about this to many people (highly educated, smart people) - most of them are adamant on the idea that human beings absolutely have to work to deserve anything, even food and water. This might very well be anecdotal, but very few people get ideas like Basic Income intuitively. It would likely take tremendous amount to first make people understand, then acce…

All humans have a psychological need to be needed. The current way to best feel this is to provide income for yourself and your family through work, and provide a service for your employer. This is extremely satisfying for a majority of people. Take away work and these two things collapse. To get UBI to work, we need a new way for people to feel needed.

There are numerous ways to satisfy one's urge to "feel needed". To give two very different examples, volunteering for various projects (trust me, there's a lot of stuff that needs doing), and contributing to open source.
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